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			    "The next morning Felix went out to his work, and after the usual
			    occupations of Agatha were finished, the Arabian sat at the feet of the
			    old man, and taking his guitar, played some airs so entrancingly
			    beautiful that they at once drew tears of sorrow and delight from my
			    eyes.  She sang, and her voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or
			    dying away like a nightingale of the woods.

			    "When she had finished, she gave the guitar to Agatha, who at first
			    declined it.  She played a simple air, and her voice accompanied it in
			    sweet accents, but unlike the wondrous strain of the stranger.  The old
			    man appeared enraptured and said some words which Agatha endeavoured to
			    explain to Safie, and by which he appeared to wish to express that she
			    bestowed on him the greatest delight by her music.

			    "The days now passed as peaceably as before, with the sole alteration
			    that joy had taken place of sadness in the countenances of my friends.
			    Safie was always gay and happy; she and I improved rapidly in the
			    knowledge of language, so that in two months I began to comprehend most
			    of the words uttered by my protectors.

			    "In the meanwhile also the black ground was covered with herbage, and
			    the green banks interspersed with innumerable flowers, sweet to the
			    scent and the eyes, stars of pale radiance among the moonlight woods;
			    the sun became warmer, the nights clear and balmy; and my nocturnal
			    rambles were an extreme pleasure to me, although they were considerably
			    shortened by the late setting and early rising of the sun, for I never
			    ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of meeting with the same
			    treatment I had formerly endured in the first village which I entered.

			    "My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily
			    master the language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than
			    the Arabian, who understood very little and conversed in broken
			    accents, whilst I comprehended and could imitate almost every word that
			    was spoken.

			    "While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as
			    it was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field
			    for wonder and delight.

			    "The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's Ruins of
			    Empires.  I should not have understood the purport of this book had not
			    Felix, in reading it, given very minute explanations.  He had chosen
			    this work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed in
			    imitation of the Eastern authors.  Through this work I obtained a
			    cursory knowledge of history and a view of the several empires at
			    present existing in the world; it gave me an insight into the manners,
			    governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth.  I
			    heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental
			    activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early
			    Romans--of their subsequent degenerating--of the decline of that mighty
			    empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings.  I heard of the discovery
			    of the American hemisphere and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of
			    its original inhabitants.

			    "These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings.  Was
			    man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so
			    vicious and base?  He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil
			    principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and
			    godlike.  To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour
			    that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on
			    record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more
			    abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm.  For a long time I
			    could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or
			    even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of
			    vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and
			    loathing.

			    "Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me.
			    While I listened to the instructions which Felix bestowed upon the
			    Arabian, the strange system of human society was explained to me.  I
			    heard of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid
			    poverty, of rank, descent, and noble blood.

			    "The words induced me to turn towards myself.  I learned that the
			    possessions most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and
			    unsullied descent united with riches.  A man might be respected with
			    only one of these advantages, but without either he was considered,
			    except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to
			    waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few!  And what was I? Of
			    my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I
			    possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property.  I was, besides,
			    endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even
			    of the same nature as man.  I was more agile than they and could
			    subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with
			    less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs.  When I looked
			    around I saw and heard of none like me.  Was I, then, a monster, a blot
			    upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?

			    "I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted
			    upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with
			    knowledge.  Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor
			    known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!

			    "Of what a strange nature is knowledge!  It clings to the mind when it
			    has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock.  I wished sometimes to
			    shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one
			    means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death--a state
			    which I feared yet did not understand.  I admired virtue and good
			    feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my
			    cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except
			    through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and
			    unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of
			    becoming one among my fellows.  The gentle words of Agatha and  the
			    animated smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me.  The mild
			    exhortations of the old man and the lively conversation of the loved
			    Felix were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!

			    "Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply.  I heard of the
			    difference of sexes, and the birth and growth of children, how the
			    father doted on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the
			    older child, how all the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up
			    in the precious charge, how the mind of youth expanded and gained
			    knowledge, of brother, sister, and all the various relationships which
			    bind one human being to another in mutual bonds.

			    "But where were my friends and relations?  No father had watched my
			    infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if
			    they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I
			    distinguished nothing.  From my earliest remembrance I had been as I
			    then was in height and proportion.  I had never yet seen a being
			    resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me.  What was I?  The
			    question again recurred, to be answered only with groans.

			    "I will soon explain to what these feelings tended, but allow me now to
			    return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various
			    feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated
			    in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in
			    an innocent, half-painful self-deceit, to call them)."



			    Chapter 14

			    "Some time elapsed before I learned the history of my friends.  It was
			    one which could not fail to impress itself deeply on my mind, unfolding
			    as it did a number of circumstances, each interesting and wonderful to
			    one so utterly inexperienced as I was.

			    "The name of the old man was De Lacey.  He was descended from a good
			    family in France, where he had lived for many years in affluence,
			    respected by his superiors and beloved by his equals.  His son was bred
			    in the service of his country, and Agatha had ranked with ladies of the
			    highest distinction.  A few months before my arrival they had lived in
			    a large and luxurious city called Paris, surrounded by friends and
			    possessed of every enjoyment which virtue, refinement of intellect, or
			    taste, accompanied by a moderate fortune, could afford.

			    "The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin.  He was a
			    Turkish merchant and had inhabited Paris for many years, when, for some
			    reason which I could not learn, he became obnoxious to the government.
			    He was seized and cast into prison the very day that Safie arrived from
			    Constantinople to join him.  He was tried and condemned to death.  The
			    injustice of his sentence was very flagrant; all Paris was indignant;
			    and it was judged that his religion and wealth rather than the crime
			    alleged against him had been the cause of his condemnation.

			    "Felix had accidentally been present at the trial; his horror and
			    indignation were uncontrollable when he heard the decision of the
			    court.  He made, at that moment, a solemn vow to deliver him and then
			    looked around for the means.  After many fruitless attempts to gain
			    admittance to the prison, he found a strongly grated window in an
			    unguarded part of the building, which lighted the dungeon of the
			    unfortunate Muhammadan, who, loaded with chains, waited in despair the
			    execution of the barbarous sentence.  Felix visited the grate at night
			    and made known to the prisoner his intentions in his favour.  The Turk,
			    amazed and delighted, endeavoured to kindle the zeal of his deliverer
			    by promises of reward and wealth.  Felix rejected his offers with
			    contempt, yet when he saw the lovely Safie, who was allowed to visit
			    her father and who by her gestures expressed her lively gratitude, the
			    youth could not help owning to his own mind that the captive possessed
			    a treasure which would fully reward his toil and hazard.

			    "The Turk quickly perceived the impression that his daughter had made
			    on the heart of Felix and endeavoured to secure him more entirely in
			    his interests by the promise of her hand in marriage so soon as he
			    should be conveyed to a place of safety.  Felix was too delicate to
			    accept this offer, yet he looked forward to the probability of the
			    event as to the consummation of his happiness.

			    "During the ensuing days, while the preparations were going forward for
			    the escape of the merchant, the zeal of Felix was warmed by several
			    letters that he received from this lovely girl, who found means to
			    express her thoughts in the language of her lover by the aid of an old
			    man, a servant of her father who understood French.  She thanked him in
			    the most ardent terms for his intended services towards her parent, and
			    at the same time she gently deplored her own fate.

			    "I have copies of these letters, for I found means, during my residence
			    in the hovel, to procure the implements of writing; and the letters
			    were often in the hands of Felix or Agatha.  Before I depart I will
			    give them to you; they will prove the truth of my tale; but at present,
			    as the sun is already far declined, I shall only have time to repeat
			    the substance of them to you.

			    "Safie related that her mother was a Christian Arab, seized and made a
			    slave by the Turks; recommended by her beauty, she had won the heart of
			    the father of Safie, who married her.  The young girl spoke in high and
			    enthusiastic terms of her mother, who, born in freedom, spurned the
			    bondage to which she was now reduced.  She instructed her daughter in
			    the tenets of her religion and taught her to aspire to higher powers of
			    intellect and an independence of spirit forbidden to the female
			    followers of Muhammad.  This lady died, but her lessons were indelibly
			    impressed on the mind of Safie, who sickened at the prospect of again
			    returning to Asia and being immured within the walls of a harem,
			    allowed only to occupy herself with infantile amusements, ill-suited to
			    the temper of her soul, now accustomed to grand ideas and a noble
			    emulation for virtue.  The prospect of marrying a Christian and
			    remaining in a country where women were allowed to take a rank in
			    society was enchanting to her.

			    "The day for the execution of the Turk was fixed, but on the night
			    previous to it he quitted his prison and before morning was distant
			    many leagues from Paris.  Felix had procured passports in the name of
			    his father, sister, and himself.  He had previously communicated his
			    plan to the former, who aided the deceit by quitting his house, under
			    the pretence of a journey and concealed himself, with his daughter, in
			    an obscure part of Paris.

			    "Felix conducted the fugitives through France to Lyons and across Mont
			    Cenis to Leghorn, where the merchant had decided to wait a favourable
			    opportunity of passing into some part of the Turkish dominions.

			    "Safie resolved to remain with her father until the moment of his
			    departure, before which time the Turk renewed his promise that she
			    should be united to his deliverer; and Felix remained with them in
			    expectation of that event; and in the meantime he enjoyed the society
			    of the Arabian, who exhibited towards him the simplest and tenderest
			    affection.  They conversed with one another through the means of an
			    interpreter, and sometimes with the interpretation of looks; and Safie
			    sang to him the divine airs of her native country.

			    "The Turk allowed this intimacy to take place and encouraged the hopes
			    of the youthful lovers, while in his heart he had formed far other
			    plans.  He loathed the idea that his daughter should be united to a
			    Christian, but he feared the resentment of Felix if he should appear
			    lukewarm, for he knew that he was still in the power of his deliverer
			    if he should choose to betray him to the Italian state which they
			    inhabited.  He revolved a thousand plans by which he should be enabled
			    to prolong the deceit until it might be no longer necessary, and
			    secretly to take his daughter with him when he departed.  His plans
			    were facilitated by the news which arrived from Paris.

			    "The government of France were greatly enraged at the escape of their
			    victim and spared no pains to detect and punish his deliverer.  The
			    plot of Felix was quickly discovered, and De Lacey and Agatha were
			    thrown into prison.  The news reached Felix and roused him from his
			    dream of pleasure.  His blind and aged father and his gentle sister lay
			    in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free air and the society of
			    her whom he loved.  This idea was torture to him.  He quickly arranged
			    with the Turk that if the latter should find a favourable opportunity
			    for escape before Felix could return to Italy, Safie should remain as a
			    boarder at a convent at Leghorn; and then, quitting the lovely Arabian,
			    he hastened to Paris and delivered himself up to the vengeance of the
			    law, hoping to free De Lacey and Agatha by this proceeding.

			    "He did not succeed.  They remained confined for five months before the
			    trial took place, the result of which deprived them of their fortune
			    and condemned them to a perpetual exile from their native country.

			    "They found a miserable asylum in the cottage in Germany, where I
			    discovered them.  Felix soon learned that the treacherous Turk, for
			    whom he and his family endured such unheard-of oppression, on
			    discovering that his deliverer was thus reduced to poverty and ruin,
			    became a traitor to good feeling and honour and had quitted Italy with
			    his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money to aid him,
			    as he said, in some plan of future maintenance.

			    "Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix and rendered
			    him, when I first saw him, the most miserable of his family.  He could
			    have endured poverty, and while this distress had been the meed of his
			    virtue, he gloried in it; but the ingratitude of the Turk and the loss
			    of his beloved Safie were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable.  The
			    arrival of the Arabian now infused new life into his soul.

			    "When the news reached Leghorn that Felix was deprived of his wealth
			    and rank, the merchant commanded his daughter to think no more of her
			    lover, but to prepare to return to her native country.  The generous
			    nature of Safie was outraged by this command; she attempted to
			    expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily, reiterating his
			    tyrannical mandate.

			    "A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter's apartment and told
			    her hastily that he had reason to believe that his residence at Leghorn
			    had been divulged and that he should speedily be delivered up to the
			    French government; he had consequently hired a vessel to convey him to
			    Constantinople, for which city he should sail in a few hours.  He
			    intended to leave his daughter under the care of a confidential
			    servant, to follow at her leisure with the greater part of his
			    property, which had not yet arrived at Leghorn.

			    "When alone, Safie resolved in her own mind the plan of conduct that it
			    would become her to pursue in this emergency.  A residence in Turkey
			    was abhorrent to her; her religion and her feelings were alike averse
			    to it.  By some papers of her father which fell into her hands she
			    heard of the exile of her lover and learnt the name of the spot where
			    he then resided.  She hesitated some time, but at length she formed her
			    determination.  Taking with her some jewels that belonged to her and a
			    sum of money, she quitted Italy with an attendant, a native of Leghorn,
			    but who understood the common language of Turkey, and departed for
			    Germany.

			    "She arrived in safety at a town about twenty leagues from the cottage
			    of De Lacey, when her attendant fell dangerously ill.  Safie nursed her
			    with the most devoted affection, but the poor girl died, and the
			    Arabian was left alone, unacquainted with the language of the country
			    and utterly ignorant of the customs of the world.  She fell, however,
			    into good hands.  The Italian had mentioned the name of the spot for
			    which they were bound, and after her death the woman of the house in
			    which they had lived took care that Safie should arrive in safety at
			    the cottage of her lover."



			    Chapter 15

			    "Such was the history of my beloved cottagers.  It impressed me deeply.
			    I learned, from the views of social life which it developed, to admire
			    their virtues and to deprecate the vices of mankind.

			    "As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil, benevolence and
			    generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to
			    become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities
			    were called forth and displayed.  But in giving an account of the
			    progress of my intellect, I must not omit a circumstance which occurred
			    in the beginning of the month of August of the same year.

			    "One night during my accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood where I
			    collected my own food and brought home firing for my protectors, I
			    found on the ground a leathern portmanteau containing several articles
			    of dress and some books.  I eagerly seized the prize and returned with
			    it to my hovel.  Fortunately the books were written in the language,
			    the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage; they consisted of
			    Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter.
			    The possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight; I now
			    continually studied and exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst
			    my friends were employed in their ordinary occupations.

			    "I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books.  They produced
			    in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me
			    to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection.  In
			    the Sorrows of Werter, besides the interest of its simple and affecting
			    story, so many opinions are canvassed and so many lights thrown upon
			    what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects that I found in it a
			    never-ending source of speculation and astonishment.  The gentle and
			    domestic manners it described, combined with lofty sentiments and
			    feelings, which had for their object something out of self, accorded
			    well with my experience among my protectors and with the wants which
			    were forever alive in my own bosom.  But I thought Werter himself a
			    more divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined; his character
			    contained no pretension, but it sank deep.  The disquisitions upon
			    death and suicide were calculated to fill  me with wonder.  I did not
			    pretend to enter into the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards
			    the opinions of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without precisely
			    understanding it.

			    "As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and
			    condition.  I found myself similar yet at the same time strangely
			    unlike to the beings concerning whom I read and to whose conversation I
			    was a listener.  I sympathized with and partly understood them, but I
			    was unformed in mind; I was dependent on none and related to none.
			    'The path of my departure was free,' and there was none to lament my
			    annihilation.  My person was hideous and my stature gigantic.  What did
			    this mean?  Who was I?  What was I?  Whence did I come?  What was my
			    destination?  These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to
			    solve them.

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